WRMLNS, 2024
Performance | Watermelon
WRMLNS began as an urgent impulse to the increasing frustration and dissonance I felt between the need to engage in dialogue about the Zionist project’s illegal militaristic brutal occupation, Isreal’s onslaught of its latest iteration of displacement and genocide against the Palestinian people, and the heavy bombardment in Gaza since October 7th 2023 on one hand, and feeling a sense of responsibility as an Arab and an artist to use my position and platform to shift people’s gaze and focus to the atrocities that continue to take place until this very day on the other hand. Leaning into absurdity, watermelons are smashed against the ground. The work examines what it means to witness. What does it mean to witness documented violence continually, and for millions to witness violence broadcast in daylight with no accountability? Resembling dismembered and disemboweled bodies, cracked skulls, and helmets, these watermelons encapsulate the colors of the Palestinian flag. Through audio-visual-olfactory stimulation, the work overwhelms the viewer by engaging the viewers’ senses, each triggering different memories and emotions. By employing the element of surprise, these series of performances confront the viewer with the violent sound of an exploding watermelon, accompanied by the visual imagery of red chunks of flesh and spilled red juices on the floor, and finally lingering on the sweet smell of watermelon.
The iteration of the artwork below is titled WRMLNS: Daymare, 2024.
video in collaboration with Tamara Kalo
The collaboration came as an iteration of WRMLNS. A single-channel video installation projected on a the surfare of a square Keffiyah flat on the ground. The keffiyeh's embroidery, undone in parts of the middle, and patches of watermelon seeds replace the undone pattern. This artwork was informed by a performance titled “Into Me Into You”. During the performance, the keffiyeh was worn by the performer (myself) in different wrap styles. At the end of the performance, I placed watermelon seeds on the keffiyeh on the floor, this arrangement was left on the floor until the end of my MFA Thesis exhibition at Pratt Institute. Through cycling film and digital footage, the artwork examines the relationship between documentation and violence, a long history of recorded and ongoing displacement, subjugation, and genocide of Palestinian peoples, while a real watermelon decomposes in front of the viewer's eyes and watermelon juice completely turns into mold, reflecting on the pathology and decay as much as the proliferation and growth of one over the other.
